So we’re staying in a hotel room that has an odd feature. The bathroom light is on a motion sensor, it just comes on as soon as you enter through the door. There is no way to turn the sensor off. We don’t know if this is an ‘accessibility feature’ of the room but we do know it’s a damned annoying one. Both of us wake up too easily when we are standing in a white room flooded with light. And as we are over 60 we both make a few trips a night to the white room. Going from the dark of sleep and the dark of the room into the centre of the sun is startling to the point of full wakefulness. Then, of course, there’s the job of going back to sleep.
After two nights of this, we went to the front desk of the hotel. We waited two nights because we forgot about it after the first one. I was explaining to the clerk the problem and said that it was really affecting my sleep, which it was. Joe added in that he too was disturbed by the blast of watts in the middle of the night. The clerk first asked me if I was sure that I didn’t need the light to go to the bathroom at night. I didn’t say, but thought, I’m 63, I’m here asking for the light sensor to be stopped, I’m pretty sure. I just nodded.
She said she would see what she could do for us. I said, banging my fist on the table, “You just tell them that the ADA says that I have the right to pee in the dark!!” We all laughed. Joe and I left to go back to work and when we were back in our room, the light sensor had been fixed and we were set to have a darker night.
I’m Canadian so I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of the ADA but, if it doesn’t say we have the right to pee in the dark, it needs amending.
Do I have an AMEN!
